For Thomas

Let me tell you a simple story of a sleepy village. Nestled at the bottom of two hills, crowned with grey granite boulders, buzzards soar by day and owls hoot by night. In the village there was a tall, young man, he had a shock of wild frizzy hair, he liked to draw fairies and goblins and loved old ways and old tales and music to jig to. He was brought up by his Aunt as his mother had died. She raised him and he was her own, she poured love into him and nurtured a gentle spirit.
It came to pass that as a young man he fell in love with a woman, fair and true, but with a temper to raise passions. She also loved to draw and brought colour into the lives of those around her, she made people laugh.They lived a simple life, both wanting to be free to create. They loved the hills around their home and married atop the granite tor, proclaiming their love for all the gathered villagers to hear, some weeping with joy for the raw honesty of their words. Rain soaked their clothes and the wind whipped the dress of the bride, swollen belly proud, the baby eager to leap into their lives.
Villagers would watch the family go about their lives, the baby daughter with a shock of fair hair and a gentle smile.They were very much loved by their friends and family.
After a time, the heart of the young man started to falter, his love remained but his heart would not work. He became tired and struggled to hold his beloved daughter. He laughed despite his fear,while his wife took the little girl alone on her back to watch the buzzards and feel the wind.
The villagers, their friends, and his family also felt the fear as his strength waned.
His heart stopped.
And now the village is in mourning, an aura of shock and disbelief surrounds the people who knew him.
He was a good man, of the type only found in fairy stories.Those left behind are bereft, of a son, a husband, a daddy, a friend, a person to while away the days and nights, to share fires and songs, stories and creatures, magic and most of all love. His spirit is still here, it is strong and present, maybe soaring with the buzzards, or the owls.You loved well Thomas, and are well loved.Carry the love with you.xxx

Steaming River..Winter at last

Finally after months of dull, shapeless, grey skies we have the winter we have been looking for.The land is covered in white and grass crunches satisfyingly underfoot.The cold air snaps at hands and catches in warm sleepy lungs.Winter grabs you by the throat and demands,"Are you alive?"

The morning starts with these colours. Colours to get lost in.

The frost sparkles on the wooden rails, gleaming silver, ponies in the shade look cold and unimpressed by the fence's new beauty, standing still, looking down their very long noses at my exuberance.

I am trying to walk our dog without the habitual list of stuff in my head to do once I have walked the dog, and remember why we have a dog to walk with at all.She sniffs the leaves and probably has all manner of associations that I am oblivious to. Fox smell and otter spraint, owl pellets these signs I can get but after that the woodland animals nightlife remains a mystery to me.While Jessie dog is sniffing around in her world, I can take the time to look at all the little things.We investigate our habitat, Jessie mainly with her nose and me mainly with my eyes. Seeing changes in texture and form like this lichen.

 The river side is noticeably much colder, steam rises of the water.

I can feel the river's vitality in my lungs.Yes, I am awake and alive.

We walk on through the fields to our veg garden,left over survivors from the summer, corn marigolds are frozen.

Last summer's windmill, to scare away the jays from the broad beans, is also frozen still, colours lost to the weather.

Our garden is pretty dormant apart from a whole load of brassicas that my mum gave me as seedlings, with the words, "Not sure what they are, there were some sprouts, broccoli and I think these might be kale or was that the kale?". Anyway now we have a patch of still mainly unidentifiable brassicas, maybe this was supposed to be the brussel sprout plant.Thanks for the green stuff Mum.

Tomorrow is the second day of home schooling for Daisy.Once a week we get to home school with her. Last week it was my first turn and, despite a cold, she insisted we start at 8am (gulp!) We did some yoga, researched Jupiter, planned future projects, did some maths, designed a moon landing flag, and generally whizzed through activities like space speed freaks, not quite what I had pictured!!! I am wondering how Daddy will fare, with a daughter who loves to learn but doesn't like to be told ( so unlike me ha ha ha). I am hoping they will have warm star biscuits baked ready for my morning gardening break.Yum. Enjoy the sparkly days x

Merry mid winter

I love the winter solstice, the promise of light increasing slowly, slowly. For now staying by the fire,warm in the darkness, hibernating...
For the first time we are using ash wood felled in our own woods, hauled up a muddy slope by hand on a kind of barrow adapted by Ashley, in the summer we will use a truck and trailer .The track is slippy in the steepest part, being mud and shale it is tricky to keep your footing at the crucial moment, when my strength gives out I am glad of an extra haul from my fellow husky. It is good to be tired, lungs huge from exertion, legs wobbly, but a weeks worth of wood for our burner.





In an attempt to be a more social creature, now my work is a bit more solitary, we had a gathering of friends old and new for a mid winter celebration.Sharing food and too much mulled wine on my part.We lit as many candles as we could find, decorated the living room with evergreens and bright red holly.We played about filling these little metal heart cooking tins with berries and lichen and a pair of little felt elf slippers straight out of the elves and the shoemaker. Neat and perfect for dancing, when the big people are asleep in their beds.....

It has been a winter of dancing around for our dearest Daisy, who has gained her wings in many ways. Playing a recorder solo at the school play and discovering the joy of unashamed dancing and singing, she is flying.This is her, turning into a sparkly mermaid as she whirls dervish style. 

Tonight is Christmas night and although sleeping in the lounge, so I don't keep everyone awake coughing, I am happy thinking of friends and family as I write, as usual thankful for how lucky we are. The elves have to bide their time as I am busy but they will get to dance soon....I wanted to send some love and light to anyone struggling with whatever life is throwing at them. Have a candle and a wish for someone you are thinking of. 

(Especially for Suzy, Jo and Thomas, Lunar and Pickle.)

Enjoy the return towards the sun. Merry midwinter everyone x

Daffodils,Tim Minchin, Change

So November is running heedlessly on without its coat, whooping at its own warmth and recklessly encouraging bulbs to start shooting beneath the earth. I spent one morning this week rearranging a flower bed and had to dig up daffodil bulbs underground.Their shoots were long and they will soon be above ground early.This time last year we had snow and I am wondering when this crazy warmth will end and we will get our first real frost. Some flowers are still hanging around looking a little ragged and munched, rebellious in their summer dresses.

Earlier in the week there was a thick mist hanging over our part of the moor. One of those days when its not even raining but the mist lands on everything, soaking quietly.

Walking home with my sparkly dog I had that eerie feeling that noone else was around, my wellies sounded loud on the lane and the oak trees holding onto the leaves stood silently in the greyness. My walk home is the time I feel most connected with the land around me. After a mornings gardening I am tired, I can walk without any other agenda than getting home at some point. I have time to watch the smallest changes in the hedgerows. At the moment, after flailing, they look like they have had an over zelous haircut.Yow.


The pregnant cows switch their tails as they lay in the muddy field, only one bothering to stand and eat.Their uneven winter coats cover their swollen bellies. The occasional flutter and whir of a wood pigeon out of the mist. A couple of crazy, barky dogs send me on my way. Homeward.

Later, in the car, we were listening on the radio to Tim Minchin's song," White Wine in the Sun", you can listen here. We got home before the song was finished, so sat in the car and listened to the end of it.Tim Minchin makes me laugh a lot but this is more of a love song. Daisy turned around to hold my hand, she finds any emotional stuff hard to bear and is touched particularly by sentiment in music, (she once asked me to turn off Billie Holiday as it was too much).We listened in the dark. On the walk to our gate she carried on holding our hands and said "Daddy that's like me, I'm your blue eyed girl because I have blue eyes". Ashley agreed that he thinks of her when listening to it. At that moment we are all together......Thinking of how it will be when she is grown up and we are older.We are at a point of change, a quantum leaps into the next stage of our lives. She will start a new school soon, within walking distance, new friends to make and back in her own community. I am glad.

This month is seed falling month in the Celtic calendar, I like this name. Often in November as the leaves are nearly gone, I yearn for life, growth and I resist the dying vegetable garden and receding energy. I was born in Spring so I think this is where my joy lies. I can deal with Autumn in the sunshine but find the flat grey mornings hard.Today was, happily for me, a beautiful day, blue skies, whispy clouds.

Gentle, low sun shining through the leaves, setting their red, gold and green aglow.

The garden was hiding many things of small beauty, alive, fruiting, seeding, changing.

This periwinkle has an amazing centre up close..........Have a peek.

It reminds me of spider eggs nestled in a sac.

The ivy is flowering, one of the few to start flowering now. Next time you see one, look this close, they are crazy flowers.

Shocking pink fruit from Spindle trees hang and burst open, revealing bright orange seeds.

Nature's current colour clash.

 

A confused Rhododendron is starting to flower, just two flowers as lookouts. Too early! Go back to sleep. So here we are...... Autumn bumping into Spring, falling and leaping, changing times.x 

                                                                           

End of the day play.

I am writing quietly, so as not to disturb the play going on at my feet. After a day being out and about, going from swimming lesson to walking with friends, it is dark now and we are all doing our thing by the fire.The dog is asleep after a good walk, Ashley is reading, I have been playing with photos and am writing this blog. Daisy is happy playing on the floor, talking to her Sindy doll and a lizard .She has given the Sindy doll purple goo mittens, scarf and socks, 
( imagine purple chewing gum that peels off if you haven't experienced goo stuff ). The lizard is modelling an all in one hoody design. See....when she says "Will you play with me mummy?", my head doesn't quite go to the same place.Nice designs though.


 I have to write quietly as if I breathe too loudly Daisy will awake 
from her reverie and this space will quickly disappear.




  So what's been happening here? 

A lot of water has been falling from the sky, quickly followed by a swollen River.The River is cloudy with silt. It clears to a rich Guinness, coloured by the moorland peat, stirred up in the rush from moor to sea. It is hard to capture the forceful rush of the water, the air hums with its energy and the cool vapour is instantly ital. Watching the strength of flow beneath you as you cross the bridge is pretty humbling.

.

All of a sudden water is obviously in charge. I have always loved this idea....

“Human beings were invented by water as a device for transporting itself from one place to another.” 
― Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction


My space is narrowing, play with purple goo has changed to looking at Tourist attraction leaflets, (an essential raid earlier by the children on the way to the cafe toilet). A vague mention of when dinner is, means five minutes max before the energy shifts. Ashley has asked Daisy to get the nail clippers for him. Daisy asks me to get the nail clippers as, I quote,"We don't know where they are".No one gets the nail clippers and they get distracted by watching a song on Ashley's phone.The owls hoot to the sound of,"Your thigh bone is connected to your hip bone". Ashley and I argue over whether another weird cry is a goose or a vixen or deer.I don't believe a goose would cry at night. 
Phew .... the Jenga game is out, Ashley fearlessly goes into playing a game with rules, with a headstrong, only child. My space increases.




Anyway back to the water.We are surrounded by the dripping trees in the woodland and raindrops drops on bright red Acers. Such delicate beauty next to awesome might.

With the River in full spate our bath water changes colour.Now our cooking and light is directly from the energy of the water (with the aid of some high tec kit). In a few weeks our heat will also be from the hydro and then the water will be all encompassing.Awesome.

Jenga down, I'm gone.x

Dark story and firelight.

This evening we went to a harvest party in the field at Chagfood where the beautiful vegetables from our veggie box are lovingly grown.For those of you who live many miles away you can check out some of our friends and Samson the Horse who does a lot of the work at Chagfood.We feel so lucky to have happy smiley people, and a beautiful strong horse, growing fantastic food right on the edge of our town.
The evening was warm and star filled and it was good to sit around the fire, chatting and listen to the music of the incredibly talented Rima accompanying Thomas Hirons' enchanting storytelling. Pig tailed daughter listened wide eyed, or eyes screwed up, depending which way the smoke from the fire blew and only dared to whisper, "Is it true?" a few lines from the end.The story was of Baba Yaga, a fearful crone who lives in the deepest dark of the woods and Helena who must rescue her brother from the dreadful crone. Rima played the accordian, running as Helena's life depended on it away from Baba Yaga, or snoring like the old crone herself. Lots of ahhs and oohhhs and witchy enough to take your mind to the dark places.
The food shed was raided and the children returned with pudding for us, which was an unexpected treat. In the dark we tried to work out what it was made out of, maybe plum kind of crumble?!
Little children lay in their mums arms feeding,watching, or closing their eyes as they were falling asleep saying,"I'm never ever EVER going to bed". Away from the heat of the fire and just out of the adults gaze, the straw bales were torn apart and the children made straw beds and flung armfuls at each other with glee.
I wonder if this will be one of the nights she will remember, playing in the dark, swinging her torch and running between the candles, just in case the story was true.

I love it. Dew? Yes I love it too.

The best jewels in town.

Spiders adding their own spirals. Misty autumn mornings.